October 30th 2015 - decorating for halloween

We eventually arrived at my best friends house yesterday, after a very long journey that took over an hour longer than usual and had the kids fighting more than usual in the car.

She had made a start on decorating for halloween but had left most of it for me to do as she didnt have the patience.

I raided the cupboard under the sink for bin bags and found both black and white (yes!) aand set up cutting them into strips, tying 2 together with a knot so that we could use them as a creepy door cover.  Some went up really easily to door frames but we had to staple them to the arch in the kitchen wall as tape and blue tak wouldnt hold.

they looked better in the dark and they did feel creepy asyou walked through them as they stuck to your face.

We (I) also covered her hallway, stairs and landing in spiders web stuff.  This was left to me to sort as she knew I had done my house with it last year and i managed to spread it thin and wispy.

 
















My friend changed all her light bulbs to red or green, and we added a few other bits like fabric spider webs, spider nests that I made, mummy wrapped dolls and skeletons, and the kids allcarved pumpkins.

(this pic was from saturday night party when we put the fake candles in them).

I think at this point we were just about ready decoration wise.

October 29th 2015 - a simple math sum.....

What do you get if you put 3 boys into a car, strap them in and set off on a 5hr journey???  The answer is simple fighting and arguing!

3 kids + a car journey = living nightmare


This is made even worse when the said 5hr journey has delays due to lots of traffic, road works and accidents and takes over 6hrs.    Despite them having dvds to watch, toys and games, books to read, food to eat.  it's not good enough for them and the "he took my toy" and "dont poke me" and "it wasnt me it was him" etc starts.

They cant do the simple thing of sit nicely and do own thing, no they have to fight and argue which winds me up and we are all stuck in this small metal tin on wheels that isnt going anywhere very fast, we're not even near a slip road so we cant get off and find a service station or park for 10mins!  it drives me mad.  sooooo glad i dont do it very often.

October 28th 2015 - paper pumpkin

 today was the last of our halloween crafts before the party.  We made paper pumpkins similar to these.  ours were made with orange and yellow paper and we stapled them together as couldnt find any glue.

I havent been able to add a picture as i cant find where lil man put it.  All i know is that it didnt go with us to the party.

October 27th 2015 - Roll a pumpkin game

Me and lil man had a game of roll a pumpkin today.  We had a dice but  no paper to hand so we drew our pictures on the paint programe on my laptop.

Mine is on left made with shapes, lil man used the pencil to draw his.

We had good fun and must have had about 5 or 6 goes - the1 of the image we both drew what ever was rolled so no-1 won.

if you roll a 1 - you draw the body
if you roll a 2 - you draw the stalk
if you roll a 3 - you draw the leaf
if you roll a 4 - you draw the eyes
if you roll a 5 - you draw the nose
if you roll a 6 - you draw the mouth

October 26th 2015 - job charts

Following on from my post the other day about getting my son a gohenry card we have today sat and had a long talk about money and how he cant get it for nothing.  And we have agreed that I will only add money to his card IF he does jobs to earn it.

There is an option to add extra money to the gohenry card for things like jobs etc but i'm not in a financial position to just give him money for nothing or on top of the money going on the card.  So it seems fair.

My son agreed on the jobs he would do and he has to do each job at least 3times a week to get the money for his card.  He wanted a minecraft job chart so we made one:

(this isn't all of it but a part pic).

However, the other 2 then decided that if their brother is getting money for jobs they also want the same - but only the middle has a gohenry card as the youngest is too young.  We have said we will open him an account at the bank.

But we have had to make them job charts as well.  Middle son wanted skylanders:

and the youngest wanted Thomas the Tank:

They all have some jobs the same but others are different, especially lil man who cant do things like hoovering the stairs or clearing the table that the older 2 can do, he has things like helping to load washing machine and tumble dryer.

Hopefully its going to work and they wont get bored like last  time we had job sheets.

October 25th 2015 - Halloween Crafts

Today has mainly been spent doing Halloween Crafts.

Lil man came down with an empty toilet roll tube and asked what he could turn it into - well he decided to turn it into a witch.

He  then asked if he could have some halloween pictures to paint and colour, which he did.

October 24th 2015 - London Underground

OMG the London Underground Maps are confusing!  I'm not even in London but sat on my laptop trying to work out where I need to go, what tube stations I need and then there the cost of the trips  - which is best oyster or day card or pay per tube???

I'm so glad I dont live or work in London it would seriously do my head in.

I have printed maps from train station to tubes to hotels, to places we are going and everything in between.  I've also downloaded apps for my mobile linked to the underground!